Day 85: Judges 7-8

 We’ve already seen that something is wrong with Israel’s diligence in conquering the land and driving out the people of Canaan. Something is wrong with their central worship. In these chapters, is something wrong with their internal unity? The men of Ephraim threatened Gideon and his army. (And Gideon was from the tribe of Manasseh, the brother of Ephraim!) The  men of Succoth and Penuel refused to feed them while they were in the process of delivering Israel from the Midianites. (Midian means "strife") It seems Gideon unified the nation, yet for all his refusal to be made king, he names the son of his concubine “My father is king” (Judges 8:31) and led the land into an idolatrous divination regarding the golden ephod he made. Once Gideon dies, the people turn again to Baal, and Gideon’s very nickname came from his destruction of the altar to Baal in Judges 6:25-32.


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